The Echos of Love: Understanding Grief

The Price We Pay for Love

Grief is one of the most profound emotions we tend to experience as human beings. For some it arrives quietly, and for other’s it comes in like a thunderstorm.

Regardless of racial and socioeconomic background, it touches everyone at some point in life. Whether we lose a parent, a grandparent, a partner, a friend, an aunt, an uncle, or even a cherished dream, grief reminds us of one simple truth: We only grieve because we have loved deeply.

Some people come into our lives through blood, while others become family through love, kindness, and years of unwavering presence.

Writing has always been my truest form of worship. As someone who is deeply spiritual, I have often found my peace in the quiet act of writing rather than in spoken prayer. My faith has never been confined to rituals alone. It has lived in the spaces between words, in the stories I tell, and in the moments when I have sat with my own heart long enough to understand it. Whenever life has become too overwhelming to carry, I have returned to the written word. Writing is where I grieve, where I heal, and where I remember.

This is why I am writing this now. A week ago, someone I loved dearly left this world. I lost my Sehar Khala (خالہ). A sentence I never thought I would write so soon.

For the past three decades, she has been one of my mother’s oldest and dearest friends, but to me, she has never been just a family friend. She was my Khala in every sense of the word. She was a woman whose kindness, warmth, and unwavering love made her family long before I understood that family isn’t always defined by blood. She was also incredibly talented, educated, well-spoken, and creative.

She was the kind of person who made family feel bigger than blood. Her gentle spirit made everyone around her feel at home. Growing up, I never thought of her as an outsider or visitor. She was simply a part of our lives. Someone whose presence felt constant, comforting, and familiar.

Today, UpperMall feels a little bit quieter. Gulberg feels lonely. Lahore’s traffic noises have subsided into a collective hum of quiet words, as if the bustling city itself has lowered its voice in grief.

I find it hard to believe that I will never hear her voice again, her laugh, her sitting in my Nano’s living room waiting for me and my mom.

Friends like that truly don’t exist anymore.

Every time my mother and I would land in Lahore, she was the first to call and check up on us. She would often say, are you home? I am coming to see you. Or how jet-lagged are you? Regardless, I am coming over; let’s have breakfast together.

Besides being a gem of a human being, she was incredibly talented. She was a brilliant fashion designer. Before any big event, she always designed an outfit for me and my mom. She designed my mom’s wedding bridal, my first birthday outfit, multiple Eid Outfits, wedding guest outfits, etc. She was the center of our universe in every way.

She might not have been related to me by blood, but she loved me like a family member, and I loved her the same way. That is the beautiful thing about life. It allows us to find people who choose to love us, stand by us, and become a part of our story.

So this is my prayer for Sehar Khala.

Not one whispered with folded hands, but one written with an open heart. Every sentence is an act of remembrance. Every memory is a quiet thank you. Every word is my way of saying that although she is gone, she continues to live in the people who are fortunate enough to have known her.

Perhaps this is what grief truly is: love refusing to be forgotten. And perhaps that is why I write. Because maybe some prayers are meant to be spoken, while others are meant to be written.

So, Sehar Khala, even though life was so incredibly unkind to you, I pray you have finally found the peace that so often seemed just beyond your reach. I pray that wherever you are now, your heart is light, your burdens are lifted, and your soul is wrapped in the mercy and love of the one who knows every sorrow you carried.

You deserved gentler days than the ones this world gave you. Hope eternity has become the home where every hardship has ended, where every tear has been wiped away, and where your kindness is returned to you a thousandfold.

Thank you for loving us so wholeheartedly. Thank you for becoming family, not by blood, but by choice and by heart. You will be missed more than words can ever express, but you will be remembered with every story, every smile, and every prayer.

Until we meet again, may you rest in eternal peace.